Flock Safety, the company behind a nationwide network of automated license plate cameras, has reached an $8.3 billion valuation after raising $500 million in April 2026, according to Fortune. The round pushed Flock's total funding to $1.2 billion and came as the company crossed $500 million in annual recurring revenue, with backers including a16z, Tiger Global, Founders Fund, and Kleiner Perkins.
Founded by Atlanta based electrical engineer Garrett Langley, Flock has installed its solar powered cameras in more than 5,000 communities across 49 states. Each unit logs a passing vehicle's license plate along with its make, model, color, and other identifying details, and law enforcement can search that data using natural language queries across thousands of jurisdictions at once. Langley has described the technology in simple terms, saying a car drives by, the camera takes a picture, and that picture is static, nothing more.
Privacy advocates see it differently. Tom Bowman, who has raised concerns about the technology, argues that automated license plate readers have become so widespread that they no longer just capture where someone was at a single moment, they can reconstruct a person's entire pattern of movement over time.
That concern has been sharpened by specific incidents. An LAPD audit found that at least one Flock contract allowed data retention for five years, 60 times longer than the company's standard 30 day policy, and Flock has since recommended a seven day default while still leaving the final retention period up to individual contracts. A Washington Post investigation separately identified nearly 50 cases of officers accused of misusing the cameras, including tracking romantic partners. In one case, a Florida officer logged more than 700 unauthorized searches involving his estranged wife's vehicle.
The backlash has shown up in contract terminations and vandalism. Flock cameras have been vandalized in 36 states, and communities have canceled 82 contracts since 2021, including 39 in the first part of 2026 alone. Langley points to concrete crime solving wins to defend the technology, including its role in tracking a suspect connected to the Brown University shooting, arguing that Flock helps solve crimes that would otherwise go unsolved. The tension between that pitch and the mounting privacy concerns is likely to keep following the company even as its valuation climbs.